The invention relates to the field of integrated photonic circuits including tunable add/drop filters, a detector, a wavelength sensor, a modulator, and a tunable laser for use in telecommunication systems and networks.
Currently, many photonic functional blocks are discrete and are not monolithically integrated together. To create photonic circuits, hybrid integration approaches have been used when dealing with the integration of several functional blocks.
The need to remove information from and add information to dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) data streams can be vital to optical networks. Tunable add/drop filters allow any wavelength within the DWDM data stream to be extracted and allow the wavelength tobe added back into the DWDM data stream. To be useful, the information contained in the dropped (removed) optical signal must be converted to an electrical signal via the use of detectors. Similarly, an electrical signal must be converted to an optical signal to allow the information to be transported optically in a DWDM data stream. In deployed optical networks, the functions of dropping, adding, detecting, and modulating individual optical signals are performed using discrete components. For example, various add/drop filters are employed using thin films, array waveguides, and tunable filters such as ones described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,310,969, U.S. Pat. No. 6,424,763 and coupled resonators. The conversion of optical signals to electrical signals is accomplished by photodiodes and phototransistors connected to transimpedance amplifiers. Conversely, the conversion of an electrical signal to an optical signal can be accomplished by the direct modulation of discrete tunable lasers or by the modulation of a tunable continuous optical signal using a discrete modulator.